Extension of Romero's original "Dead" trilogy fun and inventive
The dead are mad as heck and aren't going to take it anymore! When we last caught up with George Romero's "Dead" films, "Day of the Dead" focused on the military trying to train the zombies for combat and experimenting on them. Romero takes the next step introduced into a world divided by the dead and the living each sharing space reluctantly with the other. That is until a gas station attendant zombie shows an inkling of intelligence and decides to go after the living in a sealed off skyscaper while those less fortunate live on the streets of the sealed off metropolis. Run by Kaufman (Dennis Hopper in perfect looney mode), the city is supplied by "employees" who can't live in the beautiful people's skyscraper. These scavengers led by Riley (Simon Baker) and Cholo (John Leguizamo) pillage the landscape around them for essential items for the wealthy. Riley has a conscience decides he will no longer lead the crew of his "tank" Dead Reconkening and work for "the man" anymore. Cholo, on...
George A. Romero proves that zombies still creep us out
We should have known that if George A. Romero was going to go back to the well of the living dead another time he was going to come up with something different. What "George A. Romero's Land of the Dead" (the director's name goes up top so you know this is not merely another remake of one of his zombie films, like last year's "Dawn of the Dead") offers is two variations on the familiar theme. The first is in this brave new world humanity has found a way of perpetuating the old divide between the "haves" and "haves not," even when there are all those zombies out there suggest it should now be "us" versus "them." Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) has set up Fiddler's Green, a luxury high rise on an island between a couple of rivers (think the location of Three River Stadium in Romero's old stomping ground of Pittsburgh even though the movie is shot in Toronto). There the "haves" live while the rest of the island has the "have nots," some of whom are hired as mercenaries to go out into the world...
Romero's Still Got It
I've read several reviews for Land of the Dead in the past week. Some praised it, while some dismissed it as a "rehash" or "uninspired" film, saying it does nothing to further the Romero legacy. I've heard it's not funny. I've heard it's character's sucked. I've heard lots. I'm here to let you know that Romero's new addition not only fits like a glove to the original three - it's hillarious, well acted, well concieved, and looks beautifully-dirty at that!
When I hear people say LAND is "unoriginal", it makes me chuckle. No other horror filmmaker can mix social commentary, humor, and gore like Romero, and if there is one out there, he'she probablly got the idea from Romero anyway!
I saw LAND last night, at a midnight show here in Chicago. From the opening old-school UNIVERSAL logo, to watching KAUFMAN say things like "We don't negoitate with terrorists," to watching a population of zombies appear from under the water in what, to me, is one of the creepiest moments...
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